Shelf Life

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McCormick’s book Cut, about the very controversial topic of self-mutilation, is one of the most popular titles is our library. In Sold she takes on another controversial topic– forced prostitution. Lakshmi is a 13-year-old village girl in Nepal. Her family is just barely scraping by, thanks to her gambling step-father. When a monsoon washes away their meager crops the family faces ruin and starvation.

At her step-father’s urging Lakshmi accepts a job working as a maid in the city. She hopes to be able to send money home to her mother, enough for food and maybe even a real roof for the house. She is transported by her new “auntie” who hands her off to an older man. Told to pretend she is his wife, she is transported over the Indian border and taken to Calcutta. She soon discovers that she has been sold into prostitution. At the brothel, Happiness House, she is beaten, starved and drugged until she submits.

This first-person narrative is told in spare, poetic language. The account of her subjugation is agonizing but never gratuitous. Lakshmi’s strength in the face of brutality and humiliation is impressive. How anyone, much less a 13-year-old girl, can endure what Lakshmi experiences is almost beyond imagining. Most heartbreaking of all is the author’s note telling readers that Lakshmi’s life is based on the real life experiences of thousands of Nepalese girls.

McCormick handles a sensitive topic better than almost any other writer could. The story is never sensationalistic and is one that demands telling.

By Mr. Doyle

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